Talk:Equalization payments

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The History section (with the exception of the last paragraph) appears to match word for word a CBC News In Depth article. No source is cited. However, it appears that this data was contributed before the articles publishing date.

Fhenning 04:37, 12 September 2006 (UTC)


 * You're right; a lot of it has been copied from the CBC article. The CBC article is dated more than a year before the edits that added the same content .  I'm going to take out the offending paragraphs in the History section. Greyfedora 19:36, 12 September 2006 (UTC)


 * That explains it. I messed up the year in the comparison. Though since the CBC article has a lot of good information maybe it should be placed in the external links section. Fhenning 01:40, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

NPOV
this article is almost disgusting in that it's very very biased in favour of equalisation payments. I suggest someone redoes it. --Rishiboy 05:56, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)

How is it biased? Greyfedora 19:19, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I think the sentence, "The payments have the added benefit of promoting national unity," adds bias. The program also harms Canadian unity in have provinces, because the taxpayers there see their federal tax dollars being spent disproportionately in other provinces. --Llewdor 23:04, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps changing the sentence to read "The payments are often seen to have the added benefit of promoting national unity," would eliminate concerns about bias? This can be backed up from any number of sources - David Perry's Candian Tax Foundation paper (#106) entitled "Financing the Canadian Federation, 1867-1995", for example. Kvasir42 23:33, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Removing some bias
I removed this misleading sentence: "Contrary to popular belief, it does not redistribute wealth from richer provinces to poorer ones, since money for equalization payments comes from general federal government funds."

Even if the money don't come from the treasory of those richer provinces, at least, it come from larger proportion of its wealty citizen. Anyway, it was in contradiction with "Legislation like the Canada Health Act requires equal levels of care, something the poorer provinces would not be able to provide without aid from the richer provinces.". The sentence "it is paid for most by the individual Canadian taxpayers who pay the most taxes, whatever their province of residence" explain well enough where the money come from.


 * That's not actually removing bias; that's making the article imprecise. The paragraph you removed (which I have rewritten hopefully making it better) is pretty critical to understanding how equalization works.  A perpetuation of the myth that equalization is theft from the Ontario government to pay for layabouts in Newfoundland really doesn't belong in Wikipedia.  Ontario provincial taxes do not go to Newfoundland.  The fact that more rich people live in Ontario is immaterial -- the Irving family from New Brunswick pays a lot more into equalization than most Ontarians do.  Like equalization payments or hate them -- I think we should strive to be precise about what they are.  Equalization payments are an important Canadian policy issue -- if we're going to inform people about it, let's not mislead them. Greyfedora 04:42, 26 May 2005 (UTC)


 * A full understanding of how equalisation works requires an understanding of where federal revenue comes from. Assuming no regionally biased taxation programs (like the National Energy Program), revenue is raised equally across the country (in that it's raised using the same formula everywhere - as some federal taxes are progressive, wealthier regions tend to pay more per capita).  As such, provincial programs in have provinces are funded entirely by provincial tax revenue in that province, but provincial program funding in have-not provinces is bolstered by federal tax revenue. --Llewdor 00:43, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

I just read this sentence : "However, if a province loses a dollar for every dollar it makes from the sale of its energy resources, there is less incentive to develop those reserves." Why does it only apply to energy resources? --zorxd 22:39, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Clarity re Canada
Related to the above discussion, it is not fully clear to me what the flow of money is. E.g. take this sentence:
 * Thus a wealthy citizen in New Brunswick, a "have not" province, pays more into equalization than a poorer citizen in Ontario, a "have" province.

So who pays what and who gets what? More detail or clarity needed. Ben Finn 10:27, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

I also found that sentence confusing. Maybe it should be changed to something like,


 * Thus a citizen in New Brunswick, a "have not" province, who earns the same income as a citizen in Ontario, a "have" province, contributes the same amount to the equalization.

User:carmanahtree 8:27, 15 February 2007

many vandals
someone ban these people.--Eloc Jcg 17:26, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Split section Canada into separate article
Most of the article is about just one country. This really should be in an article of its own. Tyronen (talk) 22:35, 30 December 2008 (UTC)
 * There is already Canadian Transfer Payments, perhaps it should be merged entirely into that and not have its own article? TastyCakes (talk) 22:55, 30 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I'd agree with TastyCakes. --208.38.59.163 (talk) 20:24, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

I also agree, then the idiosyncrasies of the Canadian system (and other countries) can be added, such as subsidizing items or hiding income through Crown corporations to increase the amount of equalization. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.165.189.54 (talk) 21:48, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Add reference to Wiki Canadian GDP page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Canadian_provinces_and_territories_by_gross_domestic_product —Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.165.189.54 (talk) 21:57, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

I agree about having a separate Canada articleFwoolley (talk) 21:21, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Simple English Page
I would like to suggest a Simple English language page for Equalization Payments; it's hard enough to understand already. Pheonex (talk) 17:38, 26 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Simple English wikipedia is a completely different project. If you want to start "translating" this article into simpler language, please do by all means.  I'm a little skeptical that it can all be described without using any big words, but have at 'er.  If things are unclear in this article and you think you can help remedy that, that's of course great too.  TastyCakes (talk) 17:56, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

UK - The Barnett formula?
The Barnett formula isn't really a Equalization formula, it is not based on fiscal need (factors such as sparsity of population, cost of travel, unemployment rates, and health). The UK Government's official measures of fiscal need has clearly show that the per capita need in Wales far higher than that of Scotland, yet the Barnett formula allocates the higher amount to Scotland.

The only reson it's still in use is becouse no one has been able to come up with anying less controversial.--Lord Don-Jam (talk) 09:55, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

Dr. Buttner's comment on this article
Dr. Buttner has reviewed this Wikipedia page, and provided us with the following comments to improve its quality:

"--- Equalization payments are cash payments made in some federal systems of government from the federal government to subnational governments with the objective of offsetting differences in available revenue or in the cost of providing services. They are generally calculated based on the magnitude of the subnational "fiscal gap": essentially the difference between fiscal need and fiscal capacity. Fiscal capacity and fiscal need are not equivalent to measures of fiscal revenue and expenditure, as making them so would induce perverse incentives to subnational governments to reduce fiscal effort. --

Not correct and misleading: not only federations do this, federal government may not be involved, purposes are not well described, "fiscal gap" is something else, and incentives may also affect expenditures. Here is an improved characterization.

Equalization payments are redistributive transfers between subnational jurisdictions or from the national/federal government to subnational jurisdictions. They are generally calculated based on the difference between indicators of what is considered as "fiscal need" and "fiscal capacity." Fiscal need is determined by indicators of how much funds are required to provide a standard or average level of public services. Fiscal capacity is usually defined as fiscal revenue at standardized levels of tax effort. In effect, jurisdictions with relatively high fiscal need receive more transfers while jurisdictions with relatively high fiscal capacity receive less transfers or even have to pay net contributions.

"Germany The German system of equalisation consists of three parts: (i) revenue-sharing of the Value Added Tax (VAT); (ii) Länderfinanzausgleich (LFA) or horizontal fiscal equalisation; and (iii) Bundesergänzungszuweisungen (BEZ)."

Not correct.

Here is a suggestion:

"Germany runs extensive systems of fiscal equalization at the level of states involving vertical and horizontal transfers between states and the federal government as well as at the level of municipalities and counties in all states - except for the three city states. At state level equalization involves four parts: (i) assignment of tax revenues (ii) revenue-sharing of the Value Added Tax (VAT); (ii) Länderfinanzausgleich (LFA) or horizontal fiscal equalisation; and (iii) Bundesergänzungszuweisungen (BEZ)." At municipal level rules vary by state."

We hope Wikipedians on this talk page can take advantage of these comments and improve the quality of the article accordingly.

Dr. Buttner has published scholarly research which seems to be relevant to this Wikipedia article:


 * Reference : Thiess Buettner, 2007. "Equalization Transfers and Dynamic Fiscal Adjustment: Results for German Municipalities and a US-German Comparison," Working Papers 2007-07, University of Kentucky, Institute for Federalism and Intergovernmental Relations.

ExpertIdeas (talk) 20:43, 26 August 2015 (UTC)